LUNCH pages

Arrived in plenty of time for our reservation at the Chef's Counter, where we watched Gino and his team pump out extraordinary, generous, delicious, sustainable seafood dishes.

I have been looking forward to this meal for years, and so I ordered big: local crab two ways, in roasted garlic crab soup, and a crab cake. The crab in the soup was sweet, and the cake was a delicacy. Rochelle wanted a salad, and we had a field greens salad with local bay shrimp. The two mains that we shared, Rochelle's favorite fried oysters and a grilled halibut preparation over sauteed onions, bacon, chard, and noodles in a gently savory light sauce. (Fish must swim.)

Lunch at Renata's Crêperie on G Street in Arcata – what a lovely town! Put a high-end state college in a remote town, not too far but far enough from a county seat and commercial center to draw off the mercenaries, and Voilà! You got yourself a lovely town.

The crêpe was delicious, too, but not especially photogenic.

On through Eureka and the gorgeous, windey freeway south through Garberville, then the super-twisty Highway One out to the coast and along our blessed ocean. Not much smoke, but some fog, just like the Oregon Coast.

As has become our habit, we start eating before we remember to take a picture; only the Cider and Clam Chowder are unmolested here. The Buffalo Chicken Tenders are a nice refinement – all the joys of Chicken Wings with no gnarly bones – and a fairly standard Caesar. I note with sorrow that the popularity of the Caesar has led to the loss of proper dressing – each salad should be assembled in a big bowl, dressed, and tossed before serving, not dressed in its serving bowl. C'mon, guys; you can dedicate a stainless steel bowl to Caesars!

Port Townsend appears to be a poetry town:

Here's to a Long Life

And a Merry One;

A Quick Death

And An Easy One;

A Pretty Girl

And A True One;

And A Good Beer

And Another One

A ways down the street, an Irish shoppe called 'Wandering Aengus' ... a favorite Yeats poem of mine. I congratulated the shopkeeper on her naming; she acknowledged it was the poem that inspired her. A gorgeous wool cape I wanted for Rochelle, but she wasn't having any.

Still farther, a gallery with wonderfully whimsical birds and brightly painted panels, glass sculpture, furniture, paintings -- all nice. I appreciated the collection, and the shopman said, “It started as a small shop many years ago, with me the potter; 41 years of accumulation, and this is what I got.”